


Dreams So Real

by indevan



Category: Dragon Ball
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dreams and Nightmares, F/M, M/M, Memories, Past Child Abuse, Stolen Memories, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-13
Updated: 2019-02-13
Packaged: 2019-10-27 05:42:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17760875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indevan/pseuds/indevan
Summary: She doesn't normally dream





	Dreams So Real

The sound of feet pounding on the pavement.  Her own breath ragged in her ears. The bus is at the stop.  She can hear it rumbling, see the shape of it in the dark, the lights on inside.  The doors close before they approach but reopen as they walk up. She’s not alone, she knows this.  Her brother is behind her. The bus driver knows them and looks at them for a moment, waving a hand as she struggles to get change out.  She wonders what the two of them look like and she isn’t sure why.

They keep walking as the bus moves, rocking from side to side, until they stop in the back.  Not a lot of people on the bus at this hour. Should stop running soon. Stop running soon. She pulls her backpack onto her lap and she sees her hands are shaking.  Takes gulps of breath as she just came up from being underwater. Her brother sits next to her, but he doesn’t look right. His hair is blonde like hers and--his throat.  She sees the bruises around it, looking more sinister in the harsh light of the bus. They look like handprints, large ones, and she reaches out for his hand. They both have blood on them, but she doesn’t think it’s theirs.  Her brother grasps her back and she sees his hands are shaking as much as hers. Her voice sounds out around her even though she isn’t sure if she’s talking.

“It’ll be okay, Lapis.”

The lights in the bus cut out and she wakes up.

Eighteen stares at the ceiling.  She doesn’t think she needs to sleep, but she does because she wants to feel human despite how much she’s been changed.  Usually she doesn’t dream. She falls into a swirling black void and then wakes up to daylight, sometimes hearing Krillin sing offkey in the shower.  It’s still dark out and Krillin is asleep next to her. Only the top of his head is visible, hair growing in slowly but surely. She takes a breath and closes her eyes, opens them.  Listens to the waves outside, the moving of the tides. Her daughter’s quiet, subdued breathing in her bassinet next to their bed. Obnoxious snoring somewhere down the hall.

_ We need our own place. _

It’s easier to concentrate on that than to think about the dream.  The fear during the running. The blood, the bruises. And she called her brother Lapis.  She’s gotten snatches of memories before. Usually it’s a bit of nostalgia, like hearing a song on the radio she’s never heard since becoming Eighteen and knowing the words immediately.  Knowing what chocolate ice cream tasted like before Krillin bought her a cone on their first date. Other, more specific things, like going to the beach and remembering being on the bus with her brother to one.  Eighteen has tried to chase them, somewhat, but they always elude her. This one, though, she doesn’t want to chase down. Something happened that made them run like that with overstuffed bags, bruises, and other people’s blood.

And she called her brother Lapis.

That sticks out more than anything.  She’s more or less surrendered herself to never knowing what her name was before Eighteen, but that’s a hint.  Was Lapis her brother’s name? And then what was hers?

She doesn’t want to wake Krillin, doesn’t want to bother him with it.  She lies back in bed and stares at the ceiling, knowing she won’t fall back asleep.  Doesn’t want to see what else happened.

\--

“Oh.” Her brother looks surprised when he answers the door, but he recovers quickly. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

Eighteen stares at him and her mind flickers to the dream.  Blonde hair, not black, and those bruises on his neck. She blinks and shifts Marron to her other arm.

“Playdate,” she says flatly.

Seventeen looks back at her and then nods. “Sure. Y’know, some people call.”

“Well, I didn’t.”

He looks a bit amused, lips curling up in a smile, and she knows that that means that he’s pleased she’s here.  It’s strange being separate when they were once inseparable. Twin bookends, fighting in unison and finishing each other’s sentences.  It’s good for them, being apart, being able to be their own people.

Seventeen leads her into the living room of his cozy capsule house where a playpen is set up.

“Put her in here.  They can have fun.”

Eighteen looks down to see his son squirming.  He’s wearing a little striped onesie with an octopus on it.

“There’s a starfish on the butt,” Seventeen says and tries to sound disaffected but she can bet that he’s the one who picked the outfit out.

It’s been a while since she’s since her nephew, since he was born probably.  Marron, despite her coloring, closely resembles Krillin. Eighteen has never thought how strange her own eyes would look in an infant and the result is kind of scary.  Otherwise, he doesn’t look much like her brother. Then she notices something long and brown.

“Is that a turd?” she asks.

Marron babbles a bit of a giggle as if she understands the word.

“No, it’s his tail.”

“His what?”

“That’s what I said.”

Relieved it isn’t a giant shit, Eighteen places Marron next to him in the playpen.  The two infants wriggle next to each other, barely acknowledging the other’s presence.

“Wow, they’re having so much fun,” Seventeen deadpans.

“Whatever.” She frowns. “What was his name again?”

“Bardock.”

“Does that mean something?”

Marron, she chose because it sounded nice.  Krillin had been a bit reluctant but she swayed him to it eventually.

“It was Raditz’s father’s name.”

Eighteen nods.  It’s fitting, at least.  Other than the eyes, he looks exactly like her brother-in-law.

“Are you alright, then?” she asks.

Seventeen looks at her and then shrugs.

“It’s still difficult,” he says, clearly trying to sound nonchalant, “not knowing it could happen, but I guess it should be expected that Gero didn’t listen to the one thing I wanted when he altered my body without permission.”

“He listened a little, didn’t he?”

Seventeen puts a hand on his chest and nods. “Guess it teaches me to assume he did both, then.”

She watches him play with his hair and thinks of it in her dream.  So different, then.

“It isn’t difficult looking at him, though,” he says after a moment, softly as if to himself. “I fell in love the second I saw him.”

Bardock kicks his chubby legs and widens his mouth in a toothless grin.  Their two children, proof that they’re human, wiggle together in the playpen.  She feels something lurch in her chest before she remembers why she’s here.

“Do you ever get memories of before?”

Seventeen makes a strange face and then nods.

“Sometimes.  Little things, mostly.” He blinks once, slowly, and then, “Why?”

She can’t proceed without showing her hand so she does.  She tells him about the dream, about his supposed name.

“Lapis,” he says once she’s done. “It doesn’t ring any bells.”

His hand goes to his throat, perhaps reflexively, and touches the skin there.

“Why were we running?” he asks.

“I don’t know.  That’s all the dream was.”

He looks towards the playpen from where they sit at the table and then back at her.

“You think it’s a memory.”

“It could be.” She pauses. “Your roots are coming in.”

Seventeen’s hand goes to the crown of his head and he glares at her.  That’s why it struck it so, she thinks. Her brother dyed his hair. Naturally, it’s as blonde as hers.  If she was just dreaming of her brother, his hair would be dark. If it’s blonde, it must be a memory.

“You can ask Bulma,” Seventeen says after a moment. “She has my blueprints from Gero’s lab.  She might have found something else, too. Maybe about who we were before.”

Eighteen narrows her eyes.  This is the first she’s heard of that.  It makes sense--how else would they know to make the deactivation control?--but someone potentially having access to her memories is new.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

He shrugs, leaning against the side of the playpen. “Because it doesn’t matter.  Finding out who we were doesn’t erase what Gero did to us.”

“You say that…”

“I don’t want to miss what I don’t know,” he continues. “I hate being what I am, but I don’t hate the life I’ve made.  I have a career, a husband, a child. Things that are mine. Things he couldn’t take away.”

Eighteen understands, but it’s frustrating.

“Do you want to know?” Seventeen asks.

“About who I was or about the dream?”

He turns his hand out and says, “Both.  Either. From what it sounds like, things are better now.  All things considered.”

“All things considered.”

Seventeen looks down into the playpen and she sees him smile at Bardock while he kicks his legs and waves his arms.

“Do you really mean that?” she asks.

“Saying things I don’t mean is a waste of time.”

She scoffs.

“Big talk from the guy who wanted to drive around aimlessly on our way to kill Goku.”

Another shrug.

“There are good wastes of time and there are wastes of time like that.  I used to think living here was a fun waste of time before I figured out what to do now that Goku was dead.” He tips his head to the side. “And now I’m here.”

One thing Eighteen has always retained is her memory that she is the older twin and she doesn’t need to hear a lecture from her technically younger brother.  Maybe it’s because he didn’t experience the dream that he isn’t reacting like she is. She can remember her dream self’s terror. It was so palpable. She thought she hadn’t wanted to chase the thread, but maybe she does.  Maybe she wants some kind of answer.

“And you’re happy,” she says rather than vocalize that.

“I am.  I mean, have you seen my husband?”

As if summoned, Raditz strides into the living room, looking peeved.  He’s wearing only a pair of boxer briefs, leaving a lot of skin exposed.  She can definitely agree with that statement even if he’s a bit too tall for her taste.

“Sevs, have you seen my--” He looks at Eighteen and blinks at her. “Oh.  Hey. Been a minute, huh?”

He doesn’t seem at all embarrassed to be caught almost naked so Eighteen doesn’t react either.

“She brought Marron over for a playdate.”

“Ah.” Raditz shakes his head, making that wild mane of hair of his shift from side to side. “Anyway, have you seen my good jeans?  I can’t find them.”

“They should be in the drawer.”

He huffs. “I looked there.”

It’s such a banal conversation and it makes Eighteen think of Krillin back at the house, waiting for her and Marron’s return.  Maybe Seventeen is right. Their lives are better than fine now. Cries come from the playpen and Eighteen turns to see that Marron has a fistful of her cousin’s hair.  Bardock is thrashing, making the playpen shake.

“Marron, stop that,” she says.

Raditz steps forward and reaches down.  He grabs Bardock by the tail and lifts him up.  Almost immediately, the boy is asleep. He swings a bit by his tail, upside down and held in one hand by his father.

“There you go, Bardy.”

“Is that safe?” she asks.

Seventeen nods.

“For Saiyans, I guess.  I was worried the first time he did it, too, but Bardy actually likes it.”

Raditz drapes Bardock over his shoulder and pats the starfish on the butt of his onesie.

“C’mon.  You can help Papa find his pants.”

They leave and Eighteen notices her brother staring at his ass as he goes.

“Nice,” she says flatly, rolling her eyes.

“What?” Seventeen has the gall to arch his eyebrows and pretend to look innocent. “He’s my husband.  I have written documentation that allows me to ogle.”

She gives him another eye roll for good measure and then realizes that without that distraction, they’re back where they were.  Seventeen seems to realize this as well because he flicks his hand out again.

“Lapis,” he repeats. “If that was my name, maybe yours was Lazuli.”

She makes a face. “I would hope our parents didn’t hate us that much to give us terrible, matching twin names.”

His lips twist in a fair approximation of a smile before he turns his hand down.

“Ask Bulma if you truly want to know.  She could probably find something.”

The prospect is scary, but a larger part of her really does want answers.

“If she finds anything, do you want me to tell you?”

He blinks at her once, and then twice, before saying, “Surprise me.”

Somehow she thinks she should have expected that.

\--

Visiting Bulma is always a production.  The other woman always makes a big deal out of her arrival and treats her like an old friend.  To Eighteen, it feels forced, but then she doesn’t have a good litmus test on what qualifies as friendship.  Bulma and Krillin  _ do _ have something in common.  The “we wed reformed villains” club.  Maybe they’ll get jackets. Either way, Eighteen never particularly likes coming to Capsule Corp.

At least Vegeta isn’t a problem.  If he bears any residual resentment towards her for breaking his arm, he doesn’t show it.  In fact, she barely sees him at all. He’s in the gravity room, usually. Today, though, is apparently her lucky day because he’s out in the yard with Trunks and a visiting Goten.

“I told him Goten is too young for the GR,” Bulma tells her. “He only just turned four a few months ago.”

“Okay,” Eighteen says, not sure what to do with that information.

“Hey, hon, I’m going to take Eighteen to the lab!” she calls.

She waits for some joke about her needing an oil tune-up, but it doesn’t come.  Instead, Vegeta turns his dark, pointed gaze at her and inclines his head slightly.  She isn’t sure what to make of it, but figures that it’s best to simply not care too much.  His opinion of her, in the grand scheme of things, doesn’t matter. If that nod is some weird sort of respect for her as a fighter, then so be it.  If it doesn’t, then that matters about as much to her.

She follows Bulma back into the house and the sounds of children laughing (and sounding more like they’re playing than training) fading as they move past the living quarters to Bulma’s attached lab.

“I had them grab the notes, too,” she says as she types in a code on a keypad near a door. “But I ended up only needing the blueprints.”

Eighteen nods.  The inside of this particular lab is messy, full of old crap she probably hasn’t touched in years.  Years. It’s been nearly five years since she and Seventeen were activated. It seems like yesterday and like a lifetime ago.  Strange, time. It shouldn’t mean that much to her, ageless as she is, but she sees it with every centimeter Krillin’s hair grows and every milestone Marron hits.  Weird.

Bulma’s digging around drawers, cursing under her breath as she digs around.  Eighteen doesn’t bother to offer to help. The lab is in disarray either because Bulma is that much of a slob or because it’s some sort of organized chaos only she can deduce.  So she stands awkwardly in the corner, wishing she had something to do to occupy her hands that don’t want to settle at her waist nor allow her arms to cross. Nervous...is she nervous?  Does she truly want to see what Bulma will find if it gives some answers to that discomforting dream?

“Aha!”

Bulma holds a thick, beaten-looking journal alot.

“I knew I still had it!”

Smiling, she makes her way over to her and presents the book to Eighteen.

“Dr. Gero’s lab notes.”

It’s a simple, unassuming book with a brown cover and weather-warped pages.  It’s thick, though, and probably filled with scientific babble she has no hope to decipher.  But all she needs is a name.

_ And it better not be Lazuli… _

She flips through the book, looking for something.  Part of her thinks she’ll know when she finds it. Bulma stands over her, too close.  Her breath smells like a mint mask over smoke. She spots something. A date that means nothing but a mention of her and her brother.

_...Met twins today while they were traveling.  Runaways, probably criminals. They told me their names but I didn’t care enough to remember them.  I offered them food I drugged to bring them back to the lab. They’re perfect specimens for my unlimited power models.  I only need an organic base… _

That shitty old man.  Didn’t care to remember them.  She feels the pages begin to crumble under her fingers.  She wishes he were alive so the two of them could kill him again.

“Nothing,” she says.

Bulma’s face falls. “Really?”

“It says here he didn’t bother to remember our names.”

“Oh.  I’m sorry.  Maybe...hey!” She brightens. “You said that in that dream, you called Seventeen Lapis.  Maybe we can do a search or something. Missing persons reports. I mean, that’s not exactly a common name.”

Again, a door is presented to her.  She thinks of her brother’s words and lack of desire to find out who he was.  She nods.

“Sure.”

Bulma all but skips out of this lab and she has little choice but to follow her down the hall.  The next room has a laptop plugged into a charger and some other device. Bulma slides into the seat and begins typing immediately.  The second the computer boots up, the screen is projected before them. Her desktop background is apparently her, Trunks, and Vegeta at the beach.  That he’d go willingly is a surprise, but she’s changed. He has too, it seems.

“Okay…” Bulma pulls some some database Eighteen has never seen before and begins typing.

At once, articles flash on the screen.  A police report. Bulma clicks it and two mugshots are projected above them.  She recognizes them immediately as her and her brother.

“We were criminals,” she says.

That makes a bit of sense.  It isn’t surprising.

“Some rap sheet, too,” Bulma says. “But here are the names: Lapis and Lazuli.”

She closes her eyes in resignation.  Of course.

“Is there anything else?”

“The whole ‘criminal past’ thing doesn’t bother you?” She lets out a whistle. “You  _ are  _ unflappable…”

“I kind of expected that,” she says.

“I guess.  It’s all petty crimes.” Bulma laughs. “I bet you two would have gotten along with Yamcha in his bad old days.  Or Launch.”

“Launch?”

“Oh, she’s--never mind.  An old friend. Anyway…”

She resumes scrolling and Eighteen’s eye catches a headline.

**_Couple Killed in Possible Domestic Dispute--Children Missing_ **

“Click that,” she says.

Bulma widens her eyes a little, but clicks the link.  An old, archived newspaper article springs onto the projection.  A woman and her husband killed in what’s perceived as a lover’s spat turned violent.  Neighbors commenting that there was something amiss. That they saw bruises on the skin of their twin children.  Their twin children who are missing. Their twin children named Lapis and Lazuli.

Running on the pavement.  The hand-shaped bruises on her brother’s neck.  The blood on them. Not their blood.

Eighteen continues to read, saying that the children are not believed to be suspects.  Another neighbor saying that even if they were, they couldn’t blame them. Said it would be self-defense.  The article debunks this as some kind of bias or opinion that the article itself doesn’t endorse. Eighteen looks at the fuzzy photo of a house and the even fuzzier, scanned in photographs of her and her brother.  This man and this woman.

Did they kill their parents?

Bulma is quiet and then, because she can never be so for long, clears her throat.

“So...um...should I start calling you Lazuli?”

“No,” she says sharply and then, “thank you.  For this.”

“Sure.  Of course.  What are friends for?”

She doesn’t have an answer to that.

\--

Krillin looks at her in the way he sometimes does where it’s kind of awe and she loves and hates it in equal measure.  He thinks it’s some stroke of luck that he landed her, but he doesn’t get it. She loves him because he’s kind and genuine.  It’s why she sought him out when why he saved her the way he did wouldn’t leave her mind. The way he did without knowing she could see and hear what he was doing, completely selfless in a bid for her to be happy.  He’s the sweetest, kindest man in the world and that’s why she loves him.

She wants to say it sometimes, but something makes her bite her tongue and she can’t figure out what.

“So what were you doing at Bulma’s?”

“None of your business,” she says because, truly, she can’t think of a lie and the truth is too thorny.

Krillin just nods and gives a soft smile. “Alright.”

He turns back to knock on the door.  Two times in the same week--a new record.  This is what Eighteen thinks her brother will say when he opens the door.  Instead, he opens the door and stares at them for a moment.

“Come in.  We’re dealing with a situation.”

Eighteen exchanges a look with Krillin, but shrugs and follows him in.  The situation, it turns out, is that Bardock is floating somewhere near the ceiling, giggling and grabbing his feet as he turns somersaults in the air.  Raditz stands under him, arms folded, and scowling.

“Bardy, come down.”

Seventeen gestures towards him. “You can see what’s going on.”

Krillin frowns and shifts Marron to his other arm.  She giggles at her cousin, waving her chubby arms in the air as if she wants to join him.

“Why doesn’t one of you fly up there and get him?”

“Gee,” Seventeen says. “Why didn’t I think of that?”

Raditz turns to glare at them.

“He’s a Saiyan and it’s his first time flying.  He has to come down on his own.”

“He’s eight months old.”

“And we’re lucky he did it on his own.  My father threw me in the air to see if I could fly.  What does that tell you?”

Seventeen cocks his head to the side. “A lot, actually.”

She had come to share what she learned with her brother, but this is more entertaining.

“He’s a little young, isn’t he?” Krillin asks.

At that, Raditz flashes a broad grin with all of his big, sharp teeth. “Yup.  Trunks didn’t start flying until he was three. I cannot  _ wait _ to rub this in Vegeta’s face.”

The situation persists until Bardock has decided he’s had enough and floats down into her brother’s arms.  Seventeen strokes his hair and smiles down at him in a way she’s never seen him smile before. No, that isn’t true.  She had been to his wedding. She’s seen it there, too. It makes her think about what he said. About what they’ve reclaimed.

Krillin notes the expression as well and passes Marron to her before clearing his throat a bit too loudly.

“Hey, Raditz, since that’s settled, what’s say you and me go outside and spar a bit?”

“Eh?” He cocks a brow. “Didn’t you quit fighting?”

Krillin laughs loudly and works his shoulder up and down, holding it with his other arm.

“I’ve still got it.  C’mon. Let’s go.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re my best friend’s brother and my brother-in-law!  We’ve gotta hang, bro.”

Eighteen rolls her eyes at how obvious he’s being.

“I know what you’re doing,” she says and he cringes a bit. “You want to give us alone time.”

“Uhhh…” He hangs his head. “That obvious, huh?  I guess we can just walk out, then.”

Raditz glances between them for a moment before a grin spreads onto his face.  He wraps a big, beefy arm around Krillin and it strikes Eighteen, not for the first time, how she and her brother have picked men on the opposite ends of the spectrum.

“You’re right.  Let’s go spar,  _ buddy.” _

Krillin’s eyes go wide.

“W-wait a minute.”

“Nah, like you said, you’re my brother’s best friend!” He starts walking out through the door leading outside from their kitchen, taking Krillin with him.

“I g-guess.”

The door closes and Eighteen thinks that she should have leveled a threat for him to leave her husband in one piece.  Well, if he doesn’t, she’ll just surprise him with it after the fact.

“That should be fun to watch,” Seventeen says archly.

He sits at the table and places Bardock in his lap.  She does the same and it’s eerie how they mirror each other.

“So you found something?” he asks. “I take it that’s why you’re here.”

She shrugs.  Outside, she sees a flash of gold light.

“Hey, no fair going Super Saiyan!” Krillin cries.

“Since when can he--” she begins to ask to change the subject.

“A few months before Bardock was born,” he says, cutting her off. “Now what did you find out?”

Eighteen looks at her brother, holding his son in his lap.  She looks down at her own daughter, smacking her hands on the table and babbling to herself.  Outside, she can hear the sounds of sparring that is a lot of shouting on Raditz’s part and a lot of Krillin letting out yelps.

The newspaper article and her dream.  Their names. Their criminal records. Everything she’s found.  What she can put together. Their parents, the blood, the bruises.  She shakes her head.

“I found out that you were right,” she says finally. “It doesn’t matter who we were.  It matters who we are now and what we’ve made for ourselves.”

Seventeen’s lips curve up slightly in a self-satisified smile and she kind of wants to smack it off and remind him that she’s older.

“Alright, then,” he says after a moment.

Outside, she hears a cry of “Double Sunday!”

“Aah!  No energy attacks!  Come on!”

Eighteen frowns. “If he puts a scratch on Krillin, I’m killing him.”

Seventeen cracks a slight smile and gets to his feet.

“Then let’s say we tag them out.”

She looks at her brother for a moment and then nods.

“Okay.”


End file.
